


Leave No Trace

by CryingKilljoy



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, MCRmy - Freeform, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 22:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6060049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryingKilljoy/pseuds/CryingKilljoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Like a camper, he left no trace."<br/>After Gerard committed suicide, Mikey Way struggles to grasp just what threw his brother over the edge. Was it his depression, his schizoaffective disorder, or his family who simply tried too hard?<br/>All Gerard left was one word, which he never told anyone. In his preface to the word, he left opaque instructions that weren't enough for anybody.<br/>Mikey swirls into madness, living in memories, speculation, and the desert of his mind, and he's not sure if he can get out.<br/>~Written a while ago, so my writing has improved since then~</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Letter

Hello there.

It's all over now, and I can't help but wonder if that's for the benefit of your future, not having your psychotic brother in your life anymore to mess things up. I know what you're thinking right now, Mikey — apologizing to me when I can't even hear you, pleading a case that narrates your gratitude for me, but you're wrong in so many forms.

Remember when you would ask me what I would like to be when I grew up, and I would reply _happy_? Well...it seems that _dead_ has developed a new authority that counters my previous eudemonic statement, and, well, it has ultimately prevailed, seeing as you're no doubt shaking in my bedroom, standing next to my mutilated body and a dusty gun — no, scratch that; it's just the gun, because the fools that are known as paramedics have scrambled to get me to the hospital so that they can tell a hero story to soothe their guilty conscience.

It's funny, actually, that you assume that these are my last words, when, in fact, they were never spoken, only written, and if I included writing as an expression of the tongue, then you would be out of luck still. Unless there is an immediate witness to the crime, no one can be sure what the dead's last words are, and that's incredibly haunting, isn't it? Allow me the pleasure of frightening you.

Perhaps they muttered a simple "thank you" to the mailman when he delivered their favorite magazine. Perhaps they faked it, lied and told someone they were fine. Perhaps they screamed a phrase that meant something astronomical to them as they tore the shelves from their dresser and wept for the merciful release of death.

For me, however, you won't ever know. Have fun trying to find out, just like I know you will, Mikey.

But words are just words, and I suppose that's why you abhor English class. Words are meaningless, a contradiction to a clarion action.

Two obsessions are better than one, in my opinion, for they knit together an illusion of friendship to both you and to each other, so, if you would consent, I'd like to place another one upon you.

Why did I do it? Because I hated life? Because I felt sorry for myself? Because of you? Oh, that's a tricky one. I do hope you enjoy grappling with the last possibility.

But, because I'm so generously kind, I'll permit a cessation to your desperate begging. There is one word, a word that you will have to find, a word that is buried under years of hiding and planning, a word that will explain it all and take the place of an event as an account in writing, and if actions speak louder than words, then I surmise it'll do nothing for you, but you're keen on trying, aren't you?

Because you care too much about me and my destruction of the mind, Mikey. Didn't I tell you not to do that?

I've given you no answers, though, and that really bugs you, doesn't it? You've spent years maintaining the same clueless approach when it comes to dissecting me, and now that I'm gone, there's really no chance.

Which kind of makes this letter dreadfully difficult to create, but I can only imagine how heart-wrenching it is for you.

Every sentence is a struggle to read, every moment is an ache to live through, and this is our final valediction to cling to your teary eyes.

Enjoy the petty funeral.

~Gerard


	2. One Day Later

I had always wondered what it's like to march through school after one of their students committed suicide the day before, and though I craved to know how it would go down, I never expected to discover my answer, especially not in this painful format.

In my speculation, I had imagined a scene at my table, apprehending the sporadic treat of the morning announcements, hoping that it would be chicken tender day so that there would be short lines in the other stations and I could spend less time waiting. The classroom would fall silent, confused at the disturbed expression injected into our teacher, and he would clear his throat to deliver a falsely sympathetic speech that we all knew was coming but didn't care to admit. Bursts of recognition would hug our visages, because we understood that what had transpired was our own fault, that relentless bullying, we came to conceive, spurs its own ghastly collateral.

Rather, the understanding hollowed out my peers' eyes as they followed my path to my seat in the back of the classroom. I didn't know how they had already heard the news, considering I didn't even _comprehend_ what had happened yet, but the unsteady embers flickered on and off across their faces, and I suppose it was my duty to realize.

However, their gazes were dichotomous, worry swirled in with morbid interest, because they could pick up from the shadows over the school that something was amiss, and I just wanted to hate them for grasping an idea that wasn't their own, for beating me to it.

"Mikey." My teacher's voice stopped me in my tracks, and I lifted my head to become level with him. His eyes were puffy and red, a product of a deluge of tears, but I know not what for.

He was Gerard's teacher, as well as mine, but he shouldn't pretend like he's clutched by the event, because Gerard was failing calculus, and teachers should only worry about grades and intelligence and the superficiality of a skimmed surface. _They shouldn't cry for my brother_.

"Yes?" My legs wobbled as I struggled to hold onto whatever bit of confidence I may or may not have had left.

"Would you like to share something important with the class?" His eyebrows threatened to beckon it out of me, like he was sucking out the fragmented remainder of my soul, but uncertainty made way for rage.

I was not in debt to any of these people in this classroom, to anyone at all — not even Gerard, who was currently dead, cold, in the morgue, with murder victims and other folks of his type who couldn't be bothered to stick around for the aftermath of the hurricane they triggered; I don't blame them, though; I would've done the same.

"No, not really," I replied, almost too quickly, taking my seat in the back.

My teacher looked shocked, but he regained his composure after a few moments of attempting to decipher my caustic response. "Is it all right if I do it for you?"

_Why does it matter so much? Do they need to know? How is it all of the sudden their business?_

"Fine, whatever floats your _nosy_ boat," I snapped with a pinch too much of sarcasm and spite.

His face crumpled, like my comment was somehow more hurtful than my brother's death, and he turned to my class to address them. "Last night" — my teacher shot me a glance as if to ask for my permission, and I nodded curtly — "Gerard Way, Mikey's brother, was found in his room after pressing a gun to his temple and firing. He was mentally ill—"

"Stop!" I screeched, rising from my chair and pointing an accusing finger at the man in the front of the room. "My brother was not dangerous, and neither are the majority of people with mental illnesses. What you know of sickness is from bigotry and stigma. You don't want Gerard, just his tragic story of love and loss, but you know what? He had neither of those things, just loneliness, and the only sort of emotion he may have retained was a slight allegiance to the thoughts that instructed him to take that gun and finally make use of it. He did not love anyone apart from his madness, and he did not lose _anything_ — that was me whose livelihood was stripped away, and you, especially, did not suffer."

Astonished demeanors floated into my perception as the kids shifted around to dig their laser beams into my heart, acting as though standing up for Gerard was an inferior show to perform.

"You put this weight on his shoulders and laughed at him for falling," I whispered, and for once, no one said anything, labored to correct me with their provincial views.

And if someone spoke up against me again to try to prove that they weren't at fault, they'll have a storm coming their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So there was the second chapter. I hope you enjoyed this, and if you did, please vote, share, comment, etc. Feel free to give any feedback you'd like (constructive criticism is fine, too).  
> ~Dakota


	3. Two Days After the Event

On and off, on and off. Up and down, up and down. Off and off, off and off. Up and down, up and down.

Those are the movements of the gun for the past hour, enabling and breaking contact over and over, each time a bit more sure about the decision and still not ready, so it lowers, tears itself away from the sweat-soaked skin of Gerard Way's temple.

 _Do it_ , the weapon hisses, striking with a burning sensation where it's touching him, where it's threatening him. _Pull the trigger, you wimp_.

For a moment, Gerard hesitates, a flower of fear blooming in his stomach as his finger wholly retracts from the curved piece of metal. Realizing his mistake, he leisurely returns it to its previous position of superiority.

He isn't aware of it, but he should be — he's supplying the weapon with a tactical advantage. It controls him now, ever since he nudged it into his desk drawer a two months ago, praying that it wouldn't be unearthed by anyone except him — and, to be frank, even he didn't care to lay eyes on it for much longer than necessary — yet it's ready to attack at any given time, bring him down.

Gerard turns his head to throw a glance out of the window, to the dim street, whose only companion is the lamppost looming above it, watching over the road benevolently. The hum of cars fills his ears, composes a melody of irritating sounds to misophones.

A lone siren wails like the soundtrack of Gerard's mind, and perhaps it knows what's about to come to pass and is on its way to his house to prevent him from going through with the action. And in a tragic moment, he sincerely hopes not.

Gerard doesn't want people to find him in this place with his crimson blood painting over the green walls of the bedroom — he's terrified of it, actually — but he craves the reprieve of death, and he wouldn't mind watching the red wine of his body drip from elongated fingers and family portraits, resting lifelessly on the floor; he'd just prefer to do it by himself.

It's not that Gerard aims to spare his mother from witnessing the death scene of her own child, rather thinks that an experience such as this is private. Everyone is born. Everyone dies. Shouldn't those memories be exclusive to the individual? Others don't need to earn more than their allotted share.

For family members, death means something contrasting. To them, all that they know is loss, pain, tears, for they're convinced that something has been stolen from them — perhaps something has, but they shouldn't be so naive as to consider a human life their own, something in their possession, something that can be snatched away. Maybe that's why it aggrieves them so wildly — it's a punishment for their sciolism.

To the individual, death is the event that they have been anticipating since their birth — they were, after all, born to die. Constantly, they are pondering the matter of the cause of their passing and returning empty-handed.

And Gerard supposes that's what his life is offering him now.

Once again, the gun howls at Gerard, tells him to get on with it, as if it has a place to be besides the desk drawer once its owner makes use of it. It's manipulative; it doesn't have any real vigor, only wants my brother's soul in its grasp and his blood on the walls.

But Gerard hopes to listen. Gerard hopes to obey.

 _Go ahead_ , the voice beckons, trying for a kinder approach. Suicide isn't kind, never has been, but Gerard doesn't have the authority to set the gun in its rightful place, throw dirt overtop of it.

After an hour of failed attempts, this one succeeds, and the crisp sound of a gunshot soars throughout the house, alerting his family, begging for their sympathy, pathetic flowers, and a bereaved funeral.

Or, at least, that's how it could've gone, along with a million other scenarios that are stored in my mind.

This one, at least, seemed plausible. I like plausible. Plausible is what I need for the closure that Gerard never granted me, granted anyone.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Just in case you were confused, this was just Mikey visualising how it could have gone down (so it didn't necessarily happen like this).
> 
> If you ~enjuiced~ please leave a vote, comment, share, etc. Thanks so mush
> 
> ~Dakota


	4. Five Days Before the Event

This was the first time I had been in Gerard's room in at least a year. I received only mere glimpses when requesting his presence at the dinner table, when reminding him that he's human and that humans need to eat to survive, to which he always counters me, saying that living isn't a priority on his agenda.

Gerard shuts the door after that every single time, and even if the draft created by the barrier between us isn't significant, the chills that scamper up and down my arms state otherwise.

My eyes perused the mess that he liked to call his bedroom — or, more accurately, his hovel; he never left. Papers hugged by sloppy handwriting created with smeared marker were scattered across his desk, his dresser, his nightstand. Various pill bottles — the names of the medicine were beyond my level of pronunciation — lay knocked over on the wooden surfaces hovering in this place.

And, oh god, the smell. The putrid scent of body odor hung in the dense air, which was no thicker than Gerard himself, by comparison. I could barely stand lingering in this dump of a place, but the power of desired rapport was stronger than the power of human senses.

Gerard observed me suspiciously, still unsure about his rationality for allowing me inside his heaven, which turned a hopeful situation for me into one of unease. I didn't aspire to annoy him. In fact, I hoped to achieve reconciliation.

"Thank you for inviting me in," I eventually chimed in, breaking the ice with a somewhat faulty hammer.

Gerard glared at me slightly, trying to decode my conniving plans, but he was ill-fated; the only goal I had was to please him, persuade him to come downstairs to eat dinner. "It's nothing much, anyway. Figured there's nothing to hide, seeing as..." His eyes flicked back and forth between me and his desk drawer, but after a worried expression radiating from my face, he snapped out of it. "Never mind. What do you want?"

Suddenly, the moisture clinging to my mouth ran dry, retreating to the lifeless desert to provide it with a useless rainfall for the nonexistent animals. I actually didn't know why I was here — did I want to escort him to dinner, or did I mean to inquire about the piles of pills on his nightstand?

Gerard shifted an eyebrow, ushering an answer out of me.

"W-what are...w-w-why do you have so many pills?" I stammered, raising a crooked finger to direct his attention to a noticeably large bottle in front of the mirror overhead of the desk.

Gerard's face fell in disquiet, and his jaw clenched and relaxed rather rapidly as he scoured his mind for a quick solution to my problems. "I'm pretty sure you know why."

I shook my head in confusion.

"You were there for the diagnosis. Schizoaffective disorder." He drew out the syllables, mocking me.

"You can't possibly need millions of medicines for that, though," I protested, and my eyes were still trained on the markings of each pill bottle, like if I studied them enough, I could miraculously find a cure to keep my brother on track — it's never that simple.

Gerard scowled at my comment, sorting it as ignorant and able to be ignored once he teased me about it. "Do you not know what schizoaffective disorder is? I thought since you cared so much about your mess-up of a sibling that you would take the time to do a little research."

Restlessness rattled in my chest, like everything had been thrown off-kilter. My own family appeared to hate me, even after I tried so hard to fix them, glue them back together. I _did_ , in fact, do research, scavenged the web and read every article I could find on the mental illness, and to protect him, I didn't say anything. However, his amount of medication was abnormal for his condition, and he played it off as my own mistake — I don't suppose I could've asked for it any other way if I expected some sort of recovery.

After realizing how much he damaged me, Gerard's face softened, and he sauntered over to the desk with a slouch in his posture, holding up one of the containers. "This is an antidepressant — I know that and not much else. It helps with making me more joyful or whatever, but all I understand is falsehood. They give you these blue happy pills, Mikey, and they don't let you feel anymore."

My eyes swept over the billowing curtains wrapped around his windows that he leaves open as a metaphor for an escape, and I sighed, wishing I could do the same.

"And for some of us unlucky folks, the ones that can't bear not feeling, they get suicide watch, hospitals, the torture of a cage. I don't want that, for you or for me, so my way of coping will have to work for now."

I met his gaze, responding, "How long after that?"

Gerard shrugged, following my previous route to the window. "I can never know."

My insides boiled and churned at his opaque remark, demanding a more steady flow of words. After all of the things that I've done, I deserved so much more than _I can never know_. To be specific, I deserved all of the information that he wasn't telling me.

"Is that all? Really, Gerard?" I barked, throwing my hands in the air and springing up from the bed.

An appalled countenance wiped over Gerard's face, almost like he was hurt by my sudden outburst. "What do you mean? I told you what the medicine was. Now lay off."

"You just don't get it, do you?" I scoffed, running a hand through my creamy hair.

"You know, I could say the same thing to you."

I dismissed him immediately with the caliber of words torpedoing from my lips. "I'm not like you, Gerard. I embrace my humanity, and with humanity comes curiosity. No, it's not that at all. It's a _need_. I _need_ to know what's going on with you, but you won't even hint at the slightest clue."

"I don't owe you anything!" Gerard laughed hysterically, backing into his dresser as a wild blaze transformed his eyes. "It's not my fault that you're ungrateful. I'm trying my best to provide you with some closure, or whatever it is that you worship, but you deny my best effort." Tears cascaded down his cheeks, and he lifted a shaking hand to smear them across his skin to seem vacant.

"You're right — you don't. You don't owe _anyone_ anything, because we all recognize that you're too self-righteous to pay any mind to someone other than yourself."

And it was in that moment that I swore I could see the red mark of a slap across the face visible on Frankie, and everything fell silent.

"Get. Out. Of. My. Room," Gerard fumed, suppressing his anger towards me with a flexed jaw. It was obvious that he did keep an eye on me constantly, wanted to guard me, judging by the fact that he hadn't made any move to attack, and part of me regretted uttering those sentences, but he was required to hear it — if not for me, then for my mom.

"Dinner's downstairs," I murmured, slipping out of his room.

On one hand, it was useful for Gerard to understand how I felt, but on the other hand, it left him more supplied with ache than before. And it was my fault for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: when ur beans are fighting D: but at least this opened some information on what Gerard was like before he died
> 
> If you liked this chapter, please vote, comment, share, etc. Thank you so much. :D
> 
> you guys are still dead btw
> 
> ~Dakota


	5. Two Weeks Before the Event

It was sunny in every aspect for what seemed like a million years, but Gerard hated it — hated my mother for smiling about the weather, hated me for suggesting going outside to draw, hated himself for complying and sprinting upstairs to grab his pencils and paper so willingly.

I continued to lecture him about the value of vitamin D, how being in the sun would increase the levels and improve his overall mood and energy, but every time I mentioned it, he awarded me with an icy scowl.

Yet there we were, our bodies placed lackluster on the park bench, pencils practically spilling from our gloved hands. A set of watercolors and its compatible paper were tucked beneath the structure for later use.

The back of Gerard's neck was wrapped in a scarf the hue of a thundercloud sky, cascading down the front of his torso unevenly, and a black coat was bent around his scrawny frame, its sleeves rustling with each stroke of his ink pen.

I, however, was decorated by an orange jacket that consumed my entire top section in a layer of puff. The grievance directed towards my mother for purchasing it was ever present, even six months later.

I was swinging my feet absently as I worked, feeling jovial for longer than I ever had before, but Gerard didn't appear to appreciate this momentous occasion, nor did he regulate my desultory actions.

As time passed, an object resembling a raven bled onto my sheet of paper, wings tucked by its feathered sides. A single tree branch warned the animal, reaching towards it as if to touch the slick texture, yet it kept its distance.

Gerard took notice of it, expeditiously eyeballing my creation with a persisting fascination, and I was proud of myself by his standards.

I crossed my toes that Gerard would talk to me — my fingers were occupied with digging into a bright yellow pencil to form lines, shapes, and curls — but it was evident that he would not; his eyes were fixed on a willowy tree taking up the majority of his paper.

"What's that?" I elected to ask, leaning over, though I refrained from touching his shoulder; he said contact makes his skin crawl, like there are bugs winding up and down his spine.

Gerard ignored me, humming a tuneless piece of art on his lengthy exhale as his hands worked back and forth to fashion a texture for the ginormous plant.

After a drawn-out turbulence of quietness, my brother sighed, unexpectedly inquiring, "What do you want to be when you grow up, Mikey?" His glistening hazel eyes arrested my own, and he looked...scared.

"Same as you, Gerard — happy."

"That doesn't mean anything, you know." He shrugged, turning away from me and kicking a stray rock further into the depths of the wilderness like he does to everyone who tries to intervene.

"Then why did you lie to me and say that you wanted the same thing for yourself?" I challenged. "Don't you have a future, Gerard?" The last part flew free as a whisper, hushed by the secrets that my brother didn't wish to surrender.

"Yes, everyone does. On the contrary, futures are by choice — not what goes in them to deteriorate someone's joy or classify them as future-bound and complete, satisfied with life, but the sole prospect of maintaining one. Therefore, I have a future if I want it, and so do you."

"Well _do_ you want it?" My eyes were filled with unwanted pleading, and Gerard refused to lock glances with me because of it. _Shameful_.

"It depends on what _you_ want, Mikey — the brutal truth or the lie that renders everyone oblivious. I figured you're already accustomed to the latter, though; it won't be much of a change."

I inhaled, tugging the surroundings of nature with me into my lungs — the chirping of birds, the swaying of trees, the falling of bittersweet leaves to the ground where they made no audible sound, the steady breathing of my brother, whom I loved without end. "I'll take the reality of it, no exceptions."

Gerard raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Are you sure you're prepared?"

"Yes, I'm prepared, Gerard! I'm fifteen! Stop treating me like a child long enough to let me hear what you have to say."

It felt good to voice that. Too often was he buried inside of his own head, never leaving adequate space for others to assist, and now he knew.

"Fine," Gerard huffed. "In all honesty, I can't envision any plans for my future. While you may see a twenty-two year-old Mikey, fresh out of college, strolling down the street with a dear friend clutching his arm, I don't picture anything. On lucky days, I see my gravestone, and though it doesn't bear my name, it is unmistakable as my own. Then slowly, the dirt begins to clear to behold an ebony coffin that creaks as it opens." My brother took a deep breath, shaking his head and gradually dragging his eyes towards mine. "And do you know what I see?"

My head bobbed back and forth, but of course I could infer what lay inside; I wasn't nescient, not like he thought I was.

"Most folks weakly imagine an older version of themselves — how they know what they'll look like is beyond me — but for me, there I am, new and doll-faced, preserved in a state of interminable youth. I am the person you see right now."

"Don't you aspire to be something? I thought everyone wanted to do great things, live an adventurous life, create their own definition for 'adventurous' while they're at it."

Gerard tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. "I've told you numerous times that I hoped to die early. I don't want people to witness me aged; I don't want _myself_ to witness it, either."

"I thought you were fooling around, inspired by a song or something." I was on the border of desperation, laboring to make sense of my brother's labyrinthine words, but nothing worked.

With my plea, Gerard's lips pulled into a simpering grin. "I'm creating my own song, Mikey."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I have no idea what this is. It was just a filler thing, but I guess you now know some more about Gerard or whatever.
> 
> Please remember to vote, share, comment, etc. if you liked it. Thank bae
> 
> ~Dakota


	6. A Month Before the Event

And then there came those nights that I despised so much...

Of course I remember them. Oh, how vivid they were, how they tasted of blood, reeked of shakiness.

Nights where we wouldn't hear from Gerard for hours. Nights where we prayed that he was with his friends, the ones that actually cared about him. Nights where we had no idea where he was, but we couldn't do anything because of his ever-silent cell.

"My phone is the only one who gets to be dead without being mourned," he told me. "Mourning is for the ones who crave innocence, Mikey." I never questioned him again, and my mother didn't dare, either; she was terrified.

"If you're so intrigued by death, why don't you try it yourself?" I would sometimes snap once I was fed up with all of it, but I failed to receive an answer — and I couldn't help but think that's what he was already doing.

Perhaps, worst of all, there were nights where Gerard stumbled through the front door in a drunken stupor like a melancholic bull, wielding an empty bottle of alcoholic poison in his fevered hands and falling over the stairs in an attempt to climb them. He didn't even glance at us, didn't say a word — not to me, not to my mother, not even to my absent father, whom he never labored to acknowledge as dead.

Gerard was a coward for doing that, you know. A coward for indulging in his twisted desires. A coward for keeping that gun in his desk drawer that no one knew about. A coward for leaving me here to clean up his mess.

There was one instance in particular, when he had announced his trip to the supermarket to pick up marshmallows to roast over the fire — his preoccupation with the flames were somewhat distressing, but we authorized it nonetheless — yet he didn't return for a few hours.

My mother was stationed at the kitchen table, which perpetuated a clear view to the door, her face in her hands to shield me from the river flowing down her cheeks. Her face was wrinkled from an eternity of fretting, and sobbing noises reverberated against the walls, fabricated an underworld of ceaseless cries and mangled ambition.

For whatever perverse reason, I didn't think to help, because I simply didn't know how. What is lost is lost, and there's no changing that, so I only observed.

I was experiencing my own personal, recurrent death, playing over and over like Gerard's engrossment with certain songs, and I was too busy with my own selfish needs to pay attention to my crumbling mom.

Gerard was a recreant, yes, but now he had an accomplice.

When the connection between the door and its frame was finally severed a half an hour later, the person that stepped through was barely familiar to either of us. It appeared as a shadow until the form materialized a few moments later.

Gerard's raven locks were slapdash, strewn about his head in discordance with his minimal hair gel used for styling and keeping it in place — it was evident that those plans were foiled. His nose was red from the sharp bite of the cold outside, but only after he left did we remember that it was below freezing; we didn't remind him to bring a jacket, because he would shed it in the bushes, never to be seen again — our only reliable source was his unsurmountable bravery and defiance. Gerard's skin looked pinched, but it's not like he went over to our grandmother's house (he detested relatives, thought that they were entitled to everything just because of a blood tie). His clothes were looser than before, and the strange idea that he traded them out for a bigger size crossed my mind; I discarded it, considering he was the laziest person that I ever had the misfortune of encountering.

Our eyes fluttered to Gerard's disheveled figure, tacitly exacting an explanation as to where he was and why it took him so long. We weren't exasperated — we were a tad upset, but that was to be implied — for butterflies of prospect flapped around in our chests, lighting up our senses.

However, what we dreamed of was much more disparate than what we received. We _wanted_ Gerard to give us something to work with. We _got_ a very different reply.

"Where's Dad?" Gerard wondered.

I trained my eyes on him blankly, attempting to grasp the question that he uttered. "He's _dead_ , Gerard, has been for years."

Gerard glowered at me, his eyes woven with malice, but my mother broke up the fight that was beginning to stir.

"Did you ever get around to buying the marshmallows while you were out, honey?"

Gerard shook his head, greeting my mom with the same expression with which he rewarded me. "Why do they matter so much to you?"

I was about to redirect that comment towards him, seeing as he was so occupied with adoring fire all the time, but I decided that it wasn't my battle.

"It's not the food, but the fact that you were so reckless that you stayed out for hours in the bitter weather, after telling your mother that you were set on a task that you never got around to completing. _That_ is why they matter so much. I'm disappointed in you, Gerard."

For a moment, I swore that I could detect a flash of devastation pass over my brother's face, but he cleared it just as swiftly as it had flown over him. I couldn't decipher why this specific anecdote affected him so completely — almost everyone he meets tells them the same thing at some point during their limited interaction.

"Gerard..." My mother's voice softened, extending her hand to usher him towards her, but he planted his feet in the ground. "What were you actually doing out there?"

Gerard hesitated, then something seemed to switch with the absence of a clicking sound effect, but it was obvious nevertheless. He opened his mouth to speak, closing it promptly after and gradually lifting his lips apart to try again. "I was with friends."

"Gerard, we both know you don't have any of those."

He recoiled, but my mother persisted.

"It's hurtful, but it's true."

"Fine." Gerard shook his hand through his hair in a weak attempt to restore it to a state of perfection. "I was at the park, on the swings, just drawing."

"Drawing nature?" I piped up to get him engaged with me and his interests.

"Drawing death."

And silence captured the room once again.

My mother, collecting her steadiness, exited the room to cry a river of sorrow, but I didn't dare follow her; it was best that she was alone.

"H-how do you know what death looks like?" I countered in a stammering tone.

Gerard's lips curled into a wicked grin, almost a sneer. "I don't. It's all about perception, Mikey. Sometimes it looks like a cloaked reaper. Sometimes it looks like a swaying tree in the breeze, devoid of its fruits, snatched away. And sometimes it looks like me."

"Aren't you scared, Gerard?" My voice was timid. My legs were shaking. My eyes were swimming with fear.

But Gerard was dancing with the devil.

After a prolonged pause, my brother gives his answer: "No."

"Why not?" I demanded, my heartrate quickening to a gallop.

"Why should I be?"

All the sounds of mine lowered. "Because everyone's afraid of dying."

Gerard smiled. "I'm not."

And perhaps I should've known what was to come.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: (((foreshadowing vibes)))
> 
> If you enjoyed, please feel free to offer feedback, whether that be a vote, comment, share, etc. Thanks so much.
> 
> did u get feels bc I did bye
> 
> see u in hell
> 
> ~Dakota


	7. The Aftermath

There were these folks coming up to me after Gerard died, people I haven't seen since I was a kid, people I don't even know, people that shouldn't care about Gerard in any circumstance, approaching me with wary expressions flocking to their faces and asking why he did it. And I had to tell them that I was sorry to disappoint, but not even _I_ , his own _brother_ , knew why.

But that _never_ stopped me from wondering. Tears on my bedsheets, tissues piled in my wastebasket, lachrymose conversations with myself at three in the morning, all screaming his name, all demanding the closure that they could never have.

And after all that suffering, all that anxiety, all that frustration at the psychologist for not understanding, those same people — and even more as time progressed and the ache fluctuated — painted a veneer of concern that was too powerful to chip away to reveal morbid infatuation, and they still expected a reply from me.

As if it were my fault that all Gerard wrote was one word and didn't bother to inform me of what that word was. As if I could communicate with the dead. As if I brought this upon him.

I gradually became his shadow — not Mikey Way, just the sibling of the suicidal head case who took it too far. I hated it so much. I hated how it made me look. It delayed affirmation of the fact that Gerard is gone. It dug up memories that I had thought to have been buried six feet under but were actually only an inch below the ground. It knocked the tools out of my hand in my endeavor to carve his tombstone and be liberated from sympathy calls and distasteful cards, like loss is a sickness.

And, in many ways, it is. Somatic, as well as mental. First, there's an odd, indistinguishable weight in one's limbs, feeling as though the devil himself packed lead into them and tickled their skin with fire. Then, after the initial shock of the discovery fades into a more capricious emotion, an existential haze plants itself in one's mind. Finally, there's the downward spiral into obsession and denial, and many would argue that it's not even the rock bottom — not just yet.

So I begged for sermon that would explain how these tortures could possibly make way for something more. "You'll know it when it comes," it echoed. And, for the most part, I believed that to be true.

With that, I waited. I waited for my unquenchable hunger to leave me alone. I waited for the voices to flee my head. I waited for the improbable epiphany to form a proclamation on my bedroom wall. I waited for _anything_ apart from the agony of ignorance. Once I was done waiting, I concluded that the desperate search is rock bottom.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity but was actually a single day, I went back to school, and that's where my life became a mixing pot of anguish, queasiness, and death that crept up on me to claim my life, too.

The few kids that knew Gerard offered their condolences, but though tears hurried to their eyes, they were brushed away by the blatant seeking of attention circulating their visages, and they didn't aim to admit it. And _that_...that was the unforgivable part about this all; I somehow wasn't angry with Gerard anymore, but at them.

I recognized how the teachers stared at me. _My_ teachers, not Gerard's, because they despised him — it meant something particular to them, how it affected _their_ student and how much drama there would be in the faculty lounge. They tested out remaining discreet, but I knew how they hovered around. "It must have been so difficult for you," they would quake, while hushed bouts of mock surprise punctuated their tone.

Difficult for _me_? Gerard was the one who pressed that meager pistol to his forehead and cackled, because to him, this was the easy way out, and he realized it, too. He was cognizant of the concept that death is permanent, but much less threatening to the deceased than to the healthy.

Hospitals are for the sick, soup kitchens are for the poor, and the volatile experience of death is for the living.

I suppose Gerard left because of the chains that restrained him on every occasion, whether it be depression, his schizoaffective disorder, or his hatred for splendor. The thought that he committed suicide just to allow us to wither away winds through my mindset, and a sickening force pushes against the walls of my stomach.

Gerard developed many bad habits throughout the period after his diagnosis. He would huddle in his room, barely make eye contact, and skip meals. When my mother gingerly interrogated him about it after a month of this, utilizing the gentlest phrases available to her, he growled, "I just forget to eat sometimes," and though she was beside herself with lamentation, if she pressed further, Gerard's spite would shred her confidence to a million more pieces than it was torn to in that moment.

He didn't think he was psychotic. We all knew he was.

Grappling with acceptance was the most arduous ordeal that I'm not sure I ever completed. I was unable to face the fact that I don't have a brother anymore, that I will _never_ get him back, and that this is my life now.

My psychologist said that it will never go away, not like a scrape on a knee or a cut treated by a disinfectant and an adhesive bandage, but if I so wish, I could cover it up, stomp out the match that Gerard and I were, begin to relight myself alone.

The thing about matches, though, is that they don't last forever. They break. They erode. They replace any passion that may have been present with the abrupt curse of temporal ideas. We shone like the sun for a short time, before chaos ensued, before rage consumed the person I previously called my brother.

And for a while, I was ashamed, because Gerard was still alive for some time and wreaking havoc upon everyone with whom he interacted. He repelled his potential companions and turned around to complain about how no one appreciated him.

It wrecked me. I was terrorized by the contradiction that he was playing, toying around with it like fire after numerous people told him that it was dangerous — he's always had a knack for danger, and I presume that's what got him a spot in the morgue without any trace of successful medication.

After Gerard killed himself, after his body was rushed to the emergency room, I was able to sneak inside of his safe place and witness just how horrible it was. It was like the aftermath of a storm, though bits of tornado still whirled in the places with more of the heat of anger.

The paramedics were gone, their hearts beating like a racehorse as they endeavored to transport Gerard to the hospital. They should have known that he was already lost, that bullets to the brain don't spare room for mercy. Neither should they.

Humans are too hopeful, after all. Weeping after they've lost someone. Draping black fabrics over their humbled bodies at the funeral. Crossing their fingers that their loved one will be back, yet they weave an irony, for any ghost that they've seen had sent them dashing towards the light switch out of raw terror.

Humans are liars. Humans are fakes. Humans are fruitless. Yet humans paint themselves as these saints that can do no harm and turn around to preach that nobody's perfect. They're all worthless.

Gerard fathomed that, and he never called himself one of them; I see the motive for that now. He hated humans with a burning rage.

I wonder how he would feel about being praised as one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm walking the long road
> 
> experiencing the feels trip
> 
> the spite of my words
> 
> tangles my neck
> 
> oh my god I'm done
> 
> If you ~lieked~ it, please comment, vote, share, etc. whatever u want i don't really care
> 
> thank 4 the apriseeashun
> 
> ~Dakota


	8. A Day Before the Event

"Gerard?" I whispered, nudging my brother's side to capture his attention, which was not often given to anyone besides his own wicked aspirations.

"What do you want?" he snapped, his gaze cold and sharp. He glared at me for a few moments before I spoke, and what he was most likely thinking about terrified me.

"What does it feel like? You know, depression?" I hid behind my timorous doe eyes as I waited for his answer that I feared would never come.

Gerard picked up a stray pencil and started to draw something on a napkin in front of him, something harrowing, a depiction of the hollows in the soul. "It feels sad, Mikey," he quipped. "Now leave me alone."

"But how does that sadness feel to _you_?" I pressed. "What do you do with it? What is it like knowing that your mind belongs to an incurable disease?"

"My mind does not belong to that monster," my companion sneered, jerking his pencil and slashing through his graphite creation.

"So you admit that it's a monster, yeah?" I challenged, raising an accusing eyebrow as he scowled profusely.

Much to my surprise, Gerard began to laugh hysterically, cackling until his laughter engulfed the whole room in vice. "Depression," he choked out through impish giggles, "is more than a monster. What does it feel like?" Gerard placed a finger to his lips in an action of mock thoughtfulness, only to bring it back down with a leering glimmer dancing across his face. "Is it like being melancholy all the time? Is it like wanting to be alone? Is it like struggling to get out of bed?"

My heartrate accelerated at his ambiguity, craving the answer that I never received from him — _ever_.

"Yes, but it is so much more. Depression is like lead is flowing throughout my whole body. It's like coming back to things I love, only to find them dead in the ground. It's like forming a laugh with my lips to suddenly halt at the realization that something's not right. It's like having loads of things to do, but they all seem rotten. It's like dying over and over again, a perpetual oblivion in which you are drowning."

I reached my hand out to offer Gerard some limited bit of solace, but he shook his head in a dismissal.

"Tell me — do you like being happy, Mikey?"

I nodded my head with an anxious jitter.

"I bet you do; everyone does. But with me, I don't get that wish. I don't get to be happy. Instead, I receive sore limbs and throbbing headaches, disappointment and hopelessness, shaking fingers and despair. With depression, I get peoples' scraps."

I shuddered, endeavoring to imagine how it must be for my isolated brother, but the mere thought sent me reeling away.

"There is so much skin to harm — you must know that," my brother prompted. "Yet some spend their whole life not considering the idea. However, some ponder it day by day. Some do it at an early age, some do it at a later age, and some do it to _stop_ aging." Gerard rolled back his sleeve to reveal an array of lines, scars from the cold metal of a knife, battle scars from a war against himself. "But me, Mikey...I don't cut to die. I cut to live."

Tears pulled at my eyes, tears of confusion, of apprehension. "But _how_? How do you cut to live when you've got these marks on you? You've lost so much blood over that, and for what? Long sleeves in summer? Foundation on your wrists? Is all of that appealing to you, Gerard?"

"Would you rather me commit suicide?" my wayward sibling barked, enveloping us in silence.

My voice wavered in my pittance of a response. "No, Gerard, I just...I don't want you torturing yourself — that's all I ask for."

"Doesn't seem like it," he muttered, burying his face in the table so that all I could observe was his ashy locks.

"Gerard..."

My brother lifted his head abruptly, locking our views. "I suppose now you're going to ask what suicide feels like, you nosy piece of scum, and I'll have to tell you that I don't know." He foraged in his pocket for a crystal-clear needle, saddling it in between his top and bottom sets of teeth, slightly to the right side of his mouth.

"Why do you do that?" I crinkled my nose.

"There's an interesting explanation for it, actually," Gerard reported, removing the needle temporarily after finding it difficult to speak with it so close to him. "It's like circling so close to danger, because one wrong movement could pierce your skin. When I'm feeling solitary, I point the tip inward, for the damage will be done to me. When I'm feeling hostile, I point it outwards to carve their epitaph into them, or something like that."

A tear left a running streak across my cheek, but I didn't bother to wipe it away, seeing as emasculation has never been a concern for me — petty.

"You're still waiting, though, for a justification of another sort. You want to know what suicide feels like, and as I said before, I can't be sure until I'm dead, but I sure know that it's like to be on the border.

"There are so many different ways to complete the action, to end your live, to toy with inertia, some of which are readily accessible within a home. I sometimes utilize a plastic bag, save them from the grocery store and store them in my closet for later use. I figured that if I got to choose the specifics, like having a blue one instead of a white, that I would receive the mastery that I so desired. I don't know how that's working out.

"But the thing is, Mikey, that you come into your room thinking that you're going to die, but you end up simply staring at your doom and not making it happen. However, there's a shaking feeling running through your limbs, like a whisper, an instruction that you desperately wish to listen to, but you don't have the strength.

"So you hold the plastic bag so close to your face that you could swear it spoke to you, told you to just do it, but you laughed in its face somewhat ambivalently and chose not to, because kissing your murder weapon is like having control over your own fate, and I need that, Mikey, you know? I need that."

"But loving death is what got you suicidal," I opposed.

"And loving you is what got me petrified," Gerard returned. "Petrified of leaving, petrified of forcing this mess onto you, petrified of seeing my baby brother panicked. But I now understand that I don't owe you anything — not closure, not my life, not the soft blow of sugarcoating riddled with holes — and that I shouldn't be frightened."

"But I love you, Gerard," I quaked, clinging to his side with my last bit of hope.

"And loving me is what's going to get _you_ suicidal."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: wow that was a really heart-breaking chapter
> 
> if you enjoyed, please vote, comment, share, etc. please thank bye
> 
> dont have much to say, considering I leave in like ten minutes to visit old ladies
> 
> except I wrote this author's note yesterday and I just got back from 2 hours of gross swimming with a dude with a large chin whom you can smell a mile away (it's musky, not like cheese)
> 
> and a further edit: I wrote that like two months ago on wattpad so I don't have swimming anymore
> 
> ~Dakota


	9. Thirty Minutes After the Event

"Where is he? Where is my brother?"

No one answered, only stared at me with blank expressions. I was making sense; I knew I was. So why was it that they couldn't hear me?

"Sweetie, you need to calm down," a nurse clad in baby blue reassured me, straying from her post at the check-in desk to offer me a pat on the shoulder, which I promptly brushed away.

"Where is Gerard?"

Her face fell in recognition, and something furled in those chocolate eyes of hers, something pitying. I didn't want sympathy from people; I just wanted my older brother. "Was he...I think I know the person you're asking about."

My stomach lurched in anxiousness, my fingers itching to inch open the door to Gerard's hospital room, to see him again.

The woman shook her head in dismay. "I'm so, so sorry."

"That's not what I need! I don't care if you're sorry, because you shouldn't be. You don't even know him." My voice fell as I lowered my gaze to the floor.

The fellow citizens sat in painfully boring chairs glanced up from magazines, newspapers, tear-stained family photos to discover the source of the commotion: a crying teenage boy in search of his suicidal sibling.

"Where did you put him?" I shriek.

"Honey, you need to listen to me—"

"No, I'm done listening to indifferent adults! My brother is dying, albeit a gunshot wound to the brain doesn't foster much hope, and you won't even let me see him regardless." An orb of water spiraled down my cheek, and the nurse's motherly sense instructed for her to wipe it away, until a threatening glare in my eye directed otherwise.

"Where is your legal guardian?"

"My mother is with Gerard, wherever that is."

The woman nodded, taking me by the shoulder and leading me down the hallway after my pleading façade struck her down.

My breathing was disrupted, demanding an inhalation after two seconds and ten after that, but as much as it stressed me, I told myself not to worry about it, because there was something else worth much more.

"You're really brave, you know," the nurse finally spoke.

"How so?" I pushed, my jaw clenching.

"Not everyone has to deal with an occurrence like this one." She smiled down at me, almost in a condescending manner.

"Not everyone is brave, even when facing this. I sure am not. Just because I'm experiencing this doesn't mean that I'm a soldier. You just don't _know_."

I was about to say more, were it not for the weary figure slumped outside of the doorframe, her horn-rimmed glasses knocked askew and her noes sniffling every few seconds as she attempted to hold back the waterworks.

_No._

With the speed of a tortoise, the lady's gaze lifted itself to mine, and a flash of connection fermented between us.

It was my mother, and that could only mean one thing — Gerard was dead.

~~~~~

There's something odd about sitting in the waiting room of a hospital as you expect the bill for medical services, because you assume that everyone in there has gone through the same thing, but on the other hand, you're smacked by the rancid acceptance that these people are nothing like you at all.

Yes, some of them might be fidgeting to collect the fee and be on their way — whether that's for a death, a surgery, or an abnormal cough that threw a wrench in someone's family dinner — and that's somewhat similar, right?

Others might still contain the wonderful feeling known as _hope_ , a phenomenon that I wasn't all too familiar with. Their loved one could be receiving a blood transfusion, an organ donation, anything that may or may not be deadly.

Hope is a vague thing.

Growing up with Gerard only birthed the false sense of that emotion, because we were concerned with whether he was on the cusp of death, not because we saw a brighter future for him if he chose some other equally as frivolous route for something that he was doing.

And with Gerard, it was clear that hope and ambition were two drastically different concepts.

Then there was the last group, the group that wasn't all that separated from my shattered, lamenting family. The ones that had witnessed the fall. The ones whose departure from the hospital meant the dissipation of any trace of faith within them. The ones who could never go back to living a normal life, not after what had happened.

I had seen that type of people on the television, talking about a charity that masterfully rehabilitated them, showed them the light, or in any case, worked a miracle — I hadn't thought anything of it, just disposed of my thoughts after wondering why no one would take the time to pay around sixty-three cents a day but not bothering to ask my mother to support the mission of the commercial.

I suppose that's us now, but we don't have any fancy story to tell over the air, only the achingly real truth that no one wants to hear because of Gerard's general messed-up nature.

As it is with anyone who doesn't conform to society's procrustean standards. They just want to show off the improved, the people who have their lives under lockdown, not the woman with the Adam's apple, not the little kid who can't stop thinking about the monsters in his head, not the man with a high-pitched voice, not the teen mom whose child is struggling with a disease that she simply cannot afford to manage.

Because there's something that links them all together — desperation. Desperation from not fitting in, desperation from wanting more than they were allotted by some corrupt system, desperation from needing fundamental privileges of humanity.

But with one mere trip to the hospital, we all are the same, and desperation becomes death in one way or another, no matter the circumstance. For _anyone_.

I didn't want to die — I had observed enough of that for a lifetime — but I did want to let go. Let go from my mother, let go from responsibilities, let go from me.

I felt like I deserved at least that.

~~~~~

"Mikey?" my mother said, like a question, like she wasn't sure if I was really here or not, if she had another child to love.

Gerard was gone, and who was to say that I wasn't, too?

The low drumming of our car on pavement blocked out her words in the slightest of manners, because quite simply, I didn't want to face the puffy eyes replacing her usually emerald ones.

"You know that I love you, right?"

My head pivoted to face her directly, my eyebrows knitting a tight fabric of apprehension. "Why wouldn't I?"

My mother exhaled in choppy bouts of sobbing, answering, "Because I feel like I neglected Gerard, never being able to help him, but I just realized that in my trials to save your brother, I never payed attention to you. A-and now...Now, he's _dead_ , and it may have been in vain, because you're _here_ , and he's in the hospital with people that don't have the faintest clue about him." She wiped away a tear, adjusting her grip on the steering wheel. "Because you are now, Mikey, but Gerard has always been far away, so I must've taken your presence for granted, and for that...I am so, terribly sorry."

"Mom..." I whispered. "Mom, you don't have to apologize. It's okay."

"It's not!" my mother whimpered, a strand of hair falling into her vision. "You deserved a childhood where you were actually noticed."

"My childhood was fine. I didn't mind you needing to take care of Gerard. I didn't mind _me_ needing to take care of Gerard, running as quickly as my legs would take me back to the house after school to make sure that he didn't kill himself already but never expressing my concerns to him. I never really thought about it, just did what I could." I sighed, biting my lip and letting it settle back into place after a few seconds. "And for me, that was normal. It was just something that I had to do, just as other kids had to take out the trash or set the table. Though suicide doesn't nearly equate to chores, that's just how it was, and I didn't think of questioning it."

"Why didn't you complain, Mikey?"

I was shocked. "Why would I?"

"You deserved something other than what you got. You shouldn't have only received relief in the form sprouting from despondency. Finding your brother alive after spending an entire day fretting about his safety isn't a good standard of reprieve, not like getting a good grade on a science test, not like buying concert tickets before they're sold out." My mother swallowed, continuing. "Because with those events, there is something to gain, winning it from their already stable position, but with us...we seek comfort from the absence of a dead body on our living room floor. That is not real solace."

"Especially because we're now living through the aftermath," I add. "Especially because I didn't run fast enough."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: damn that was a sad chapter
> 
> hope u had fun on this feels trip
> 
> see u in hell
> 
> from the lights to the pavement
> 
> from the van to the floor
> 
> from backstage to the doctor
> 
> from the earth to the morgue
> 
> tiem 4 foodlings before I plunge to my death in a pool of dog fuzz
> 
> ~Dakota


	10. A Month After the Event

I stopped searching after two weeks since Gerard's passage. I never found that word. I never found closure. And, believe it or not, I never found the opportunity to become an advocate for the rehabilitated suicide survivors and the departed suicide victims.

Quite simply, those speakers paint a picture of complete and utter remission, when, in truth, that is the opposite of how it starts and how it ends. They do not showcase the feeling of the air being knocked out of you when you hear the news. They do not showcase the blotchy-eyed loved ones, huddling around a scrappy box of tissues. They do not showcase the absolute pain of killing and being killed in its true form.

And I'm not sure if I can hold them accountable for that. For normal people, it's too much to comprehend.

I'm not sure why I ended my constant pursuit of Gerard's last word. Was it because I was tired? Was it because I was convinced that I would never dig it up? Was it because it didn't matter anymore?

Of course it mattered. When your loved one commits suicide, everything is twisted, turned, crunched, and the restless urge to do something about it sweeps in, and in a moment of defeat, you realize that you can't.

You keep looking all around for them, expecting them to be there, but they are _always_ absent, a falling leaf that you couldn't close your hand around. You wake up every day, and they're not with you, and they never will be — _never_. And you keep telling yourself that they're just on their way back while bashing all of the liars except yourself, but there is no distinction between you and those who pretend they care.

You become a slave to your thoughts, to the what-ifs. What if I had stuck around? What if I told them that I was there until the end? What if I knew what was going on in their head? What if I had died instead?

After all of that, you demand them to calm your nerves, but such magic is beyond them, and you persuade yourself to think that it's what your loved one would've wanted, for you to throw away your sanity for something even more spectacular: obsession.

Until it all fades away.

Gerard allotted a lowly scrap, and I believed that I would never know. Like a camper, he left no trace.

I gave up, and I was set on the path towards forgetting, until one decision threw a wrench in my way.

\------------------------------

"Mikey, I'm going out to the store," my mother proclaims. "Be good."

"When am I not?" I flash a winning smile.

She chuckles, and the door shuts with a slightly louder than intended click and a sonorous burst of air.

Immediately after I detect the noise of the garage closing and my mom's car peeling out of the driveway and into the street, I unfold my legs from under me and slide into my slippers. I bounce up from the crimson couch, sprinting up the stairs.

The time is now.

Previously, my mother wouldn't have dreamed of leaving me alone in the house, seeing as I threw tantrums left and right and was chained to an activity of searching for Gerard's last word, but after I became more mellow, she didn't want to question it and simply allowed me more privileges.

Perhaps it was a scheme, and perhaps it wasn't.

For a moment, my hand directs itself towards the knob of my door, but I hastily adjust it so that it's facing the separation between me and Gerard's room. Taking a deep breath, I connect my skin with the cold metal and twist the barrier open to reveal a cave of darkness. I flip on the light switch with the force and speed of a bolt of lightning.

It strikes me as the view from an unfinished crime scene. Objects have been pulled aside to make way for the stretcher and the rest of the paramedics filing inside. Some of his personal items have been rearranged to appear neater, but all it does is draw away some of Gerard's essence and replace it with the stale stench of perfection.

The gun is gone, though, returned to its drawer in the desk — my mother must've put it there, for she was the only one who knew its whereabouts, even if it was after the fact. Did she know about it before?

I find myself padding nervously over to Gerard's desk, my hand hovering over the handle and pausing an inch away.

_Should I open it? Would he want this? Will this end the torture I've been enduring for a month?_

With a few deep breaths and an invisible pat on the back, my fingers curl around the handle and pull open the drawer.

I don't know what I expected to be there other than the pistol Gerard used to shoot himself, for there it is in all its glory, and it's surprisingly spotless for a murder weapon.

More questions come pouring into my mindset, this time of a different topic, saying, "Should I touch it, place it in my palm?"

I do.

The metal shape rests in my trembling hand, and it's colder than I would've imagined — dare I say, colder than Gerard's heart, though only by a little. Its texture is foreign to me, and I want it away from me; I never wanted to hold a gun, _ever_.

However, I don't let go, whether it's because I hold an uncontrollable curiosity for it, or because my eyes won't separate themselves from it out of its own accord. It feels as though a force has glued the object to me, and abruptly, I don't wish to release it.

Intrigue takes hold, and I begin to discharge the magazine from the gun, starting slowly at first and practically yanking it out once it gets stuck. Eventually, after minutes of struggling, it comes free.

I peer down to find a tiny scrap of lined paper, with one word scrawled across.

_Because._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: don't worry; this isn't the ending. *wipes forehead* you don't have to kill me just yet
> 
> if I ended this here, that would be both anger-inducing and terrible, because you don't just end a story with a word that you can't even end a sentence with
> 
> in the next chapter, mikey's gonna reflect your emotions, so at least you've got an advocate
> 
> ~DANKota


	11. Fruition

My walls come crashing down, but I do nothing about it, only stand there in a foudroyant state, like always. Part of me heckles myself for submitting to my perilous habits, but the other part is too numb to interpret any piece of reality.

Gerard had left me one thing to find. He promised a word, not a scanty conjunction. I spent a month searching for something that revealed virtually nothing about why my older brother is now dead.

Seventeen year-olds don't need to die, but when they do, they'd better leave some wiggle room with them. They'd better leave something other than because.

I whip my head around to scan the various posters, papers, and notes that line his green walls, and none of them seem cherished anymore.

Because of that, it sounds like a good idea to tear them all down, regardless of the millions of papercuts I receive.

I commence my malevolence-filled adventure with the corner closest to the window, above Gerard's black-quilted bed, working my way across to the dresser.

Photos of my brother's favorite musical groups spiral down like fallen leaves in autumn, reminders, to-do lists, and turbulent drawings being added to the mix atop his mattress. I don't stop — I can't stop; the pleasure of carnage is too overwhelming to push aside.

Something snaps a moment later, when my eyes uncover an odd scrap hiding among its slain siblings. And there, in the corner of the mess that I had created, lies a paper I never thought I'd see: leverage.

Languidly, I drop the crumpled papers from my hands, scooting over to examine it. Anticipation swells in my chest as I realize that it is what I had thought.

More.

I draw the paper out from under the stack of other misfit items, my fingers working unhurriedly to expose the writing, though they should be frantic with elation.

The penmanship is like no other, only my dear brother, Gerard. The flamboyance of his letters is unmistakably his own, how each individual contains a unique spark to flaunt, curves, loops, lines.

I spend a few minutes merely analyzing the proprioception of his letters, but it's now time to read, to understand, and the questions return for a second and final show.

Why did you do it, Gerard?

Because this is the only closure humans receive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: u gois ded yet
> 
> tbh the chapter before this was more frustrating but you get the point
> 
> wowowow a conclusion for once
> 
> I feel proud of this lowly 11,164 word fanfiction
> 
> lol jk I can go fuck off with my uncompleted (now completed) 82k word book that I'm bored with but am so close to finishing (my parents keep asking me about it tho idk what to tell them -- that I'm cheating on it with another story??)
> 
> ~Dakota


End file.
